Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Discussion Thread (SPOILERS!) (1 Viewer)

[WillG]

I suppose because he created Rey's parent the old-fashioned way, and then that person had Rey. I'm not even clear on whether Palpatine fathered Rey's mother or father, which I guess doesn't matter because the movie doesn't say that it does, but that just speaks to how sloppy the whole thing was. It didn't actually give her answers about her parents; it just gave her answers about Palpatine.

I think the better question is, who in their right mind would want to have sex with Palpatine?

Women are often attracted to men with money and power, and he has both, and you know it!

 

[Jake Lipson]

In the film, Ren tells Rey that her father was Palpatine's son..

Thanks. I must have forgotten that detail, or didn't hear it over my groan when this twist happened.

 

[TravisR]

Women are often attracted to men with money and power, and he has both, and you know it!

And it is worth noting that Rey's father was very likely born prior to Palpatine becoming Emperor. More specifically, Rey was born 15 years after ANH (she's 20 in TROS) and Palpatine became Emperor 19 years before ANH and her father looked older than that to me. I'd assume that friendly democracy-loving Senator Palpatine had a kid with a woman that he was seeing and as far as anyone knew (if that many people knew), he just had a rich man's indiscretion but he was already laying down track for a future SIth.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The only thing I don’t understand more than sitting in front of a webcam and ranting for three hours about how a movie is terrible and how the people who made it have no idea what they’re doing is sitting and watching said three hour video. I also don’t see how a handful of these things can be seen as representative of anything; the movie made nearly half a billion dollars in a weekend. If it was as terrible and poorly received and its arrival as dreaded as these videos make it out to be, it would have had the opening weekend of “Cats.” It’s sometimes hard to shake the feeling that some of these people are just upset that the general public liked it more than they did.

Journalism matters. Informed criticism matters. I don’t have time for public access diatribes.

 

[Tommy R]

Was Rey shooting lightning not the reveal that she was a Palpatine? It’s been a few nights since I saw it so I don’t remember the chronology of when she was told, but the second she shot that lightning I believed she was a Palpatine.

 

[TravisR]

The only thing I don’t understand more than sitting in front of a webcam and ranting for three hours about how a movie is terrible and how the people who made it have no idea what they’re doing...

Slightly off your point but the funniest part of saying that a guy like Abrams doesn't know what he's doing indicates that some of these guys actually think that they do know how to make a movie.

And before anyone points out the obvious, I'm well aware and completely agree that there is intelligent criticism out there but it seems like there's a lot more arm chair quarterback dopes.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Was Rey shooting lightning not the reveal that she was a Palpatine? It’s been a few nights since I saw it so I don’t remember the chronology of when she was told, but the second she shot that lightning I believed she was a Palpatine.

She wasn't told yet when that happened.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It's ironic that the first time Ben Solo/Ren smiles in all three movies, he dies the next moment. I had my fourth and perhaps my last theater viewing last night in 3-D IMAX. Not the best 3-D presentation, but more than serviceable to me.

 

[Ross Gowland]

A lot of us still remember the 70s/80s when movies would be on like 1000 screens and there'd be lines around the block/sold out shows.

I assume "Rise" is on 4000+ screens, so you're gonna get semi-empty auditoriums!

That said, those auditoria in the 70s were often a lot bigger than the multiplex screens of today, 800-1200 seats as opposed to 3-400.

 

[Ross Gowland]

This guy is really upset...

I wonder if he's ever heard of dating.

He earns a living making such videos. You watched it for free.

 

[AshJW]

Right, so Palpatine is Luke and Leia’s Gramps. How can he be Rey’s at the same time?

This:

And it is worth noting that Rey's father was very likely born prior to Palpatine becoming Emperor. More specifically, Rey was born 15 years after ANH (she's 20 in TROS) and Palpatine became Emperor 19 years before ANH and her father looked older than that to me. I'd assume that friendly democracy-loving Senator Palpatine had a kid with a woman that he was seeing and as far as anyone knew (if that many people knew), he just had a rich man's indiscretion but he was already laying down track for a future SIth.

I don’t get it why those things had to be shown to understand it.
Is it so difficult to leave some things to the own imagination? Do we really need everything served on a silver plate?

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

He earns a living making such videos. You watched it for free.

I certainly would not pay to watch that and I have a hard time thinking somebody would pay him to do that. How does one make a living making videos like that?

 

[TravisR]

I certainly would not pay to watch that and I have a hard time thinking somebody would pay him to do that. How does one make a living making videos like that?

If a video or a contributor gets enough hits, You Tube will put ads up on their videos and they get paid by advertisers. I have little doubt that You Tube takes the bulk of the money so the people that make a living off of that money are the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent of You Tubers and that's not likely to be a guy ranting about Kathleen Kennedy or J.J. Abrams.

 

[John*Wells]

speaking for myself, while I didn’t hate The Rise of Skywalker, I don’t care at all for Kennedy and Abrams or Disney’s approach to Star Wars

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Women are often attracted to men with money and power, and he has both, and you know it!

Yeah, I was just gonna say that. Dude essentially rules the universe!

We see hot women with horribly unattractive men all the time - because the men are rich and/or powerful.

And it doesn't get more powerful than the Emperor!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Senator Palpatine of Naboo was incredibly charming. He didn’t advance as far as he did on ambition and scheming alone.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

That said, those auditoria in the 70s were often a lot bigger than the multiplex screens of today, 800-1200 seats as opposed to 3-400.

Yeah - to a degree. The 70s started the rise of the multiplex.

I was 3 in 1970 and 12 in 1979. When I was a little kid, the notion of a multiplex essentially didn't exist.

I'm no movie theater historian, but I don't remember a single theater complex here in the DC area with more than 2 screens until 1977 or so.

Heck, through 1976, even two-screen venues remained rare! We still had mostly single-screen venues.

I remember some rinky-dink mall 3-screen venues opened around here in 1977, and by 1979, we had one mall with - gasp! - four screens!

Actually, it's possible that venue - Skyline Mall - might've had six screens when it opened. All I know is it had more screens than we were accustomed to back then.

Some of the single-screen venues got split into 2-screeners, so those auditoriums obviously were half what they used to be.

The mall 3 or 4 screeners were tiny. At Skyline Mall, the rooms were so small that if someone in the first 5 rows stood up, you saw their shadow on the screen!

Anyway, my long-winded point is that by the time of "Star Wars" and then its initial sequels, we had a lot more small rooms than we did a decade earlier.

And a lot of these 200-screen multiplexes have some pretty big rooms, too! It's not like Skyline Mall, where they crammed maybe 100 people into each room!

So I think it's more the fact "Rise" opened on 4400 screens vs. only 1000 for "ROTJ" that leaves us with empty seats opening weekend.

Auditoriums would have to be 4 times smaller now for it to be comparable - and they're not...

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

It just occurred to me that if the original creator, Lucas (who had more of his life entwined with Star Wars than almost anyone else), could not create another trilogy that satisfied fans then how could anyone else with less intimate involvement make anything that would satisfy fans of this franchise? It starts to become apparent that it was never really possible.

Well, I think Lucas began the whole thing trying to make a single film and the result of that was he made a very fun and entertaining first picture. That led to getting to do a sequel and in the period he was making these films the effects industry was expanding the things they could do and Empire was a great follow-up because not only did he benefit from the effects work, he still had story to tell with those characters.

By the time he reaches the third film he is running out of story, so to me the story becomes more of a struggle but he manages to get the thing across the finish line and to have a decent arc from first film to third. Also he continues to utilize any and all popular effects from the moment, including the Muppets. Basically, he works those things all in because the films are raking in cash and they can afford to pay who or whatever is hot to be part of the production.

Plus by the time they are making that third feature they are well aware that the merchandising on these things is massive and so having cute Muppet creatures to sell is a great idea.

To me the great Star Wars trilogy has always been and will always be, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Spaceballs. These three are great films and the primary reason for that is they are the three films that seem to know what they are doing, where they are going, and are beautifully written and thought out. They also are all wildly entertaining.

They also all completely capture whatever the "essence" of that "universe" is to me. Mel Brooks also totally nails what that whole thing has become with his picture.

However, after years away Lucas, now rich and not much into filmmaking anymore, comes back with the second set of films. If ever there were three Star Wars films that were made for hardcore Star Wars fans it is the second trilogy of pictures. These things are loaded with minutia, politics of the universe, back story, and explanation galore. It's way more to dig through and learn about than the first three films. In these pictures he's not just doing a group of friends on a grand adventure, he's attempting to really "explain" this universe. These are films for the "serious" Star Wars fan that wants to connect the dots and be able to explain who begat who and what and how things all come together.

That's not what the first three films were. The first three pictures did not attempt this. You saw the pretty images but they were just trying to tell the tale of this adventure these friends went on together. It's basically a road movie in space.

When you get to this Disney trilogy, well, it's now no longer about what the first trilogy was about and they don't want to do what the second trilogy did because it is not seen in the same light as the first. Plus we are far removed from that film from 1977. Hell, you have generations now that were not even born when that film came out and they have none of the connection to it that the older fans do. They have their own "trilogy" type films like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter films.

So, Disney is now making a totally different kind of trilogy. One that is meant to create nostalgia for the older fans (by bringing back old characters and providing resolutions for them) while also reaching out to younger fans by giving them new characters they hopefully grab onto. So, now this trilogy is much more of a marketing strategy than a story. Star Wars is no longer a film series, it's an industry that needs to generate loads of cash.

So, sure there is no planning and writing an arc for three films there is just market research and reaction to it. The truth is that's all it is about so I can understand why people don't find these films satisfying as stories. They are not meant to be.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

At this point, I think it's time we remember the single greatest "Star Wars"-related event of all-time. We need a new trilogy all about Stacy Hedger!

 

[Greg.K]

I was fully expecting that to be from the Gong Show. But no.